The 2017 J.D. Power Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction StudySM results are in, and utilities that rank highest not only provide excellent reliability and rate options, many of them are also taking advantage of online engagement tools to improve the customer experience.
With the rise in utility customer inquiries about distributed energy resource (DER) topics such as solar, electric vehicles (EVs), storage and billing, it’s easy to understand why utilities such as Salt River Project (SRP) and Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)—two of the western region’s utility leaders and winners in the J.D. Power study—were among the first to adopt WattPlan®. Each is successfully leveraging the platform to engage their customers about various DER choices including solar, EVs and rate options.
The J.D. Power study highlighted that the pace of implementing customer satisfaction improvements at utilities can be slower than in other industries. WattPlan, however, offers a fast implementation timeline to quickly reach the increasing number of customers that go directly to the utility website for answers.
WattPlan makes a difference. In a survey at one Southwest utility, 74% of WattPlan users said that WattPlan positively impacted their perception of the utility as a trusted solar advisor.
In addition to enabling self-service education, WattPlan also can expedite call times for utility service centers. Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO), another customer satisfaction leader, trained their customer service representatives to utilize WattPlan. As a result, the duration for calls about solar has declined significantly.
Interested in seeing how you can use WattPlan® to better engage customers and improve utility customer satisfaction? Request a 15-minute demo, where you’ll see how WattPlan is transforming the way utilities are educating and engaging customers.